Conor Berry, a writer for (you’ll like this name) The Republican in Springfield, posted to Twitter about the incident:

“Folks, My 21-year career as a ‘journalist,’ a fancy term that makes my skin crawl, frankly, came to a screeching halt yesterday with one stupid, regrettable tweet. Can’t take it back; wish I could. My sincere apologies to all good, hardworking reporters and to POTUS supporters.”

Wow. Are your ears ringing? I’m not much used to hearing that.

To be clear, this is good news, not because Berry quit — I don’t celebrate his loss of a job; I merely appreciate the fact that responsibility has been taken, in some form. His apology sounds better, to me, than this one over a recent egregious move on the part of an anti-Trump reporter also in response to the Gazette shooting.

The Republican published Berry’s resignation notice Friday, in which he expressed shame and lamented that his tweet “taints the good work of fair-minded journalists everywhere.”

For more about the Capital Gazette shooting (the circumstances of which are eyebrow-raising, to say the least), please read here.

Wayne Phaneuf, executive editor for The Republican, commented in the paper on the increasing need for accuracy in journalism:

“We need to be more vigilant than ever to be fair and accurate in a climate in which we are scrutinized and criticized. The Republican newspaper and our partners at MassLive.com are committed to report the news with the truth paramount.”

Personally, I can think of a much greater reason to be especially accurate during this present darkness. And it’s this; and this; and this — it’s the dangerous escalation due to fiction being reported as fact (a milder and less depressing example of which is this). Just look at what happened to little Tomi Lahren, for Pete’s sake. The public ratchets up its fear as the media does the same with its lies. The result is…well, I’ll let Yoda explain it:

Hopefully, the media will turn things around, and their uninformed audience will relax and be happy again.

Speaking of happy, it isn’t often that I get to write about happy things. For those of you who’d like more of the light side of The Force, here are a few things to brighten your day: